“She died!” Mason cried. “Lisbeth died, dropped stone-cold dead when she was weeding the basil plants!” He burst into tears. “I never saw it coming!”
“Oh, Mase,” his sister said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Don’t cry!” Apparently, her brother’s tears were too much for her, because she began sobbing, as well.
Emmaline glanced over to the bar. Colleen had her hand over her eyes, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Coll?” she called. “Can I get these to go, please?”
WHEN HADLEY WANTED something, as Jack well knew, nothing could sway her. Not the opinions of other people, not common sense, nothing. And right now, she wanted Jack.
Which was an utter waste of her time.
“Marry in haste, repent in leisure,” Jack’s grandmother had intoned when he’d told her he was getting married.
“What’s wrong with being a bachelor?” his grandfather had asked. “I wish I was a bachelor. I’ve been wishing that for six decades.”
“So call a lawyer,” Goggy had replied. “I’m ready when you are, old man.”
In hindsight, they both had a point.
But Jack had been thunderstruck by love, and Hadley Belle Boudreau was unlike any woman he had ever met.
She was soft-spoken and smart and funny, and though Jack’s three sisters would bludgeon him to death if they heard him say it, she had manners the likes of which Yankee women—or at least Holland women—just didn’t have. Pru wore men’s clothes and smelled like grapes and dirt, same as their father did, and had enjoyed tormenting Jack with gory, detail-filled talk of periods and ovarian cysts for the past several decades. Honor was brisk and unsentimental. Faith, the youngest, liked to punch him (still, even though she was pushing thirty).
But Hadley was—how could he put this?—refined. Southern. She was, God forgive him, a lady, the kind they didn’t seem to make in the farming regions of western New York. And again, his death would be long, drawn-out and extremely bloody if his sisters (or grandmother, for that matter) heard him say that, which basically proved his point.
There was a vulnerability about Hadley; she was a tiny thing, five-foot-two, delicate frame, silken blond hair and big brown eyes, and her smile lit up a room. But she also had an occasionally bawdy sense of humor, which kept her from being too sticky-sweet.
They’d met at a wine tasting in New York City at a noisy, swanky restaurant near Wall Street populated by lean, fiercely fashionable women and loud, confident men, all aggressively eating hors d’oeuvres and trying to top each other’s stories of that week’s ballsy successes. But the restaurant was one of Blue Heron’s best accounts in Manhattan, and the owners were quite nice.
Honor usually handled these things, but she’d asked him to go, and he was happy to. Tastings (and schmoozing restaurant owners) were part of the family business, and Jack wanted to do his part. He’d joined the navy’s Reserve Officers Training Corps in college, and after he’d gotten his master’s in chemistry (because wine making was all about chemistry), he spent his time in the navy in a lab outside D.C., studying the potential effects and treatment of chemical contamination in large bodies of water. Then he came back to Manningsport and assumed the position of winemaker alongside his father and grandfather.
That had always been the plan: education, military service and a return home, and the plan had been working just fine. He loved his family, loved making wine, loved western New York. While he was exceedingly popular with the fairer sex, he was getting a little tired of dating. He wanted to settle down, have a couple of kids.
He just had to meet the right woman, and given that he knew virtually everyone in Manningsport, he was fairly sure she wasn’t there. He’d had his heart broken twice, once in college, once by a congressional aide, but since then, he hadn’t had a relationship with staying power.
So that night, he poured wine and described what people were tasting (if they were interested). In the eyes of the Wall Street men, Jack was just a bartender, and if they were threatened by the way some of the women were eyeing him, they countered by ignoring him. Which was fine. He was only there to represent Blue Heron.
The women weren’t his type, anyway—they all seemed to be dressed in stark, narrow black dresses and wore twisted pieces of wire for jewelry. Must be the trend that year, because they could’ve passed for clones, aside from variations in skin, hair and eye color.
“So what am I drinking?” one such clone asked, leaning forward to make sure he could admire the view (not that it was hard; her bra was an architectural wonder that presented her breasts as if on a platter).
“This is a sauvignon blanc,” he said, “with notes of tangerine and apricot and some great limestone elements.”
“Mmm,” she said, letting her eyes trail down his torso.
“It’s got a firm acidity and a long, clean finish. Great with any kind of fish or poultry.”
“Want to come to my place after this?” she asked. “I’m Renee, by the way. Associate over at Goldman.”
“Unfortunately, it’s against company policy,” he lied.
Another Wall Street clone sidled up to the bar and gave Jack the same speculative look as the first woman. He suppressed a sigh and forced a smile, poured some wine and delivered the shtick.
A male Wall Streeter stuck out his glass without even looking at Jack, and Jack poured obediently.
“Not that one! The cabernet!” the guy barked. Jack cocked an eyebrow and obeyed.
Then Jack saw her.
She was the only woman in the place not dressed in dark colors, which made her seem as if she’d just wandered off a Disney set. Her dress was bright pink, her blond hair was caught up in a twist with a few loose tendrils escaping and she looked a little lost.
A lot lost, actually. She glanced around, standing on tiptoe. Then, taking pains to say “excuse me” to the loud stockbrokers (who ignored her as if judging her to be inferior to their female counterparts), she made her way to the bar.
“Hello,” he said. “How are you tonight?” He could smell her perfume.
“Hi there,” she said. “I’m a little...overwhelmed, it seems. I’m supposed to meet my old college roommate, but she’s not here just yet. Guess I feel like a fish outta water.”
She had a Southern accent and a husky voice. It worked. Hell yes.
“Jack Holland,” he said, extending his hand.
“Hadley Boudreau.” Her hand was smooth and soft. “It’s awfully nice to meet you. You’re the first person who’s smiled at me all day, I swear. I’ve never been to New York before, and my goodness, it’s a whole different country, isn’t it?”
Before she’d finished speaking, he was in love. She didn’t fit into
